> a library worker doesn't need their computer at 9am so badly that they need an on-call IT worker (and presumably some kind of middle-of-the-night monitoring) to ensure it before they get in.

A single worker probably doesn't, yes. In contrast, hundreds of people being unable to do anything when they come to work in the morning is not a terrible reason to call someone and have them login for a few minutes.

Back to the IA, it seems to me our hundreds of thousands of users, employees and volunteers in time zones across the globe will be unable to access the service until we fix this is a decent reason for an institution that takes its own mission seriously to have an on-call. But you do you.

> Hell, most banks in the US are "closed" for maintenance online for several hours every weekend (or at least they were as of a couple years ago) and no one cares. It's fine.

(this is my industry) Some of their online services are closed, yes. The hours they'll be closed are typically posted ahead of time to minimize the inconvenience to everyone concerned and to display an understanding on the part of the institution that downtime is taken seriously and to signal it is not the result of carelessness. In contrast to online services, most institutions consider it a major failure if something like the ATM system is down for more than a few minutes.

> This attitude is how you waste a ton of money overcomplicating everything while making working conditions terrible for literally no reason.

That's remarkably backwards. The need for humans to be on-call is a result of systems being overcomplicated, not a cause.